Chewy, I estimated my 1RM as 255 this month, even though I was worried it was a little high. Might not be, though. I rack pulled 255 without much of a problem. I'm not totally sure what my actual 1RM is currently, though. Bodyweight is still 146.

MaryStella, thanks! I thought my dips were kinda wimpy, actually!

Lobster, maybe you can have a garden, too. Did you end up relocating to California yet? Also, if you're in an apartment right now, container gardening is the way to go. There's nothing wrong with starting with a window sill full of herbs, and learning from that.

I've been in California since Oct - definitely loved my snow-less winter. We have a couple herbs in a window box. I'd like to get some tomatoes going or something in a container on our balcony, but it doesn't get much sun so I'm worried that would be a giant flop. I should do some reading and figure out what would do best. We get some early morning light but that's about it. Which is nice if you want to sit outside in the cool shade, not so nice for growing things.

Aww, gee, thanks! Some tomato varieties do well in partial shade, actually. May as well try it, a packet of seeds is pretty cheap! We get ours from High Mowing Organic Seed Company. Also got some stuff from Raintree Nursery so we didn't have to start everything from seed this year. They have a catalog with some detail regarding growing conditions you need for different varieties.

Thanks goob! I've just finished my Deload Week where um.....I didn't even go to the gym. I just helped my husband with the garden all week and spent a nice Mother's Day with his mother and mine. The garden looks pretty good, now. My husband just fertilized it with his extra special secret fertilizer.

Anyway, I'll be heading to the gym tonight to start a new four week cycle! Overhead press, here I come!

Kinda funny nobody asked about my husband's secret fertilizer. He peed in a bucket and diluted it with water. Not as gross as you might have been thinking. Maybe. What's funny is everything shot way up in the week following the application of said fertilizer. He's pretty proud of himself.

Aaaaaanyway, here's what I accomplished last week:

Overhead Press Day

Bodyweight: 144

Assumed 1RM: 75

Military Press:

1x5x501x5x551x6x65

Push Press:

3x5x70

Good Morning:

1x12x1052x12x115

Farmer's Walks:

3x90

Plate Pinches:

3 sets each hand, to failure

Squat Day

Assumed 1RM: 205

Foam rolling for about ten minutes

Parallel Squat:

1x5x451x5x1351x5x1551x7x175

Oly Squat:

3x5x135

BOR:

1x12x951x10x951x8x95

Push-Ups:

1x161x121x8

Foam rolling for about ten more minutes

Bench Day

Bench Press:

1x5x451x5x801x5x901x7x100

Light Parallel Squats:

3x12x105

Lunges with 45 lb plate held overhead

4x12 steps

Foam rolling for about ten minutes

Deadlift Day

Deadlift:

Assumed 1RM: 260

1x5x1351x5x1701x5x1951x5x220

Rack Pulls:

3x1x255

Dips:

2x81x6

Chin-Ups:

3 sets of about 1 1/2 chins (wanted to see what I could do without assistance....kind of pathetic, actually.)

Adena wrote:Kinda funny nobody asked about my husband's secret fertilizer. He peed in a bucket and diluted it with water. Not as gross as you might have been thinking. Maybe. What's funny is everything shot way up in the week following the application of said fertilizer. He's pretty proud of himself.

I'm very happy my bench is finally starting to show some miniscule progress! Yeah!

Light Parallel Squats:

3x12x115

Lunges with 45 lb plate held overhead:

3 sets, about 12 steps

Foam rolling for about ten minutes

So for some reason, the last week or two has been kicking my butt. I'm not exactly sure why. I felt like my knee was a bit sore in a bad way after my heavy bench/light leg assistance day, so I skipped my deadlift day on Saturday. It was hurting me to walk up and down the stairs, but by the middle of the day on Sunday it felt completely fine. I think I'll start up where I left off tonight, and do only three days of lifting this week, or maybe just lift every other day until I complete this cycle, just to give myself a little more recovery time. If you can't tell, I've been trying to be a little more diligent about foam rolling, which should help recovery. I'm wondering if doing the light assistance on a different day is too much for me, or if I'm just not used to it yet. I'll keep doing it for a little longer, because I think it's a little early to tell.

In other news, our garden seems to be doing well. Our compost still does not smell at all, and the strawberry plants are blossoming. We're having lots of fun watching veggies and berry bushes take off, and have hardly had to weed. Or water. It's been pretty rainy this spring. We did set up a rain barrel to take advantage of it. It's hooked up to our drainpipe, so it fills up in about one or two rain showers. Yay for watering our garden for free!

Yeah, I felt fine in less than 48 hours so I figured I didn't do anything too serious to my knee. I think you're probably right that it's the lunges, I tend to wobble around and have terrible balance while doing them for some reason, but my squat form is really good so I don't think that would have done anything to it. I've been trying to just slow down when I do lunges so I don't lose my balance but it's still not helping.

I didn't lift that much yet this week, but I'll post what I did a little later.